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MBM - Sewaholic Granville, Version 2

After my first go at the Sewaholic Granville shirt, I
thought it would be a good idea to consolidate some of the shirtmaking
techniques I had picked up by making another fairly quickly. I’ve also enjoyed
wearing the first Granville, so I had to have another one, soon. And so, here
it is..

I was pretty happy with the fit of the first one, so made no
fit changes. The only issue I wanted to address was the slight constriction I
felt around my bent elbow. This is after adding 4cm in width between bicep and
elbow, which seemed to give me plenty of ease. Maybe my
elbows are unusually broad. Maybe my arms do weird things when I bend my elbow?
Whatever. I cut the sleeve on the bias to facilitate a bit more “give” in the
elbow area. It’s a trick I picked up on a Pattern Review course quite a while
ago, and it works a treat. You have to be a bit careful handling the
pieces as you do with any bias cut piece. And I can see in the picture below that there is a slight "step" between the bias cut sleeve and the interfaced cuff, but nothing that bothers me overly much:

The sewing of the shirt went well, due in some part to the
fabric. This is a fabric I estimate I would have bought in the late 80s, back
in the day when Mum was sewing for me regularly, and my sewing skills amounted
to sewing on buttons, and handsewing hems (Mum always made me do at least these
two jobs on whatever she made). At that time, I was in my first “proper” job
out of university, working in the Sydney CBD and would often head over to
Flynn’s Fabrics in the Mid City Centre (sadly, both have evaporated into the
either) to purchase fabrics for Mum to
sew up. Yes, I was a lucky girl, because as I have said before on the blog, Mum
is a super-duper dressmaker. It probably also helped I was the only daughter in
her family of five kids.

Anyway, I may not have known much about sewing ,
but kudos to me for choosing this fabric, which seems to be an especially fine
handkerchief linen. There could be some silk there too, I don’t know. Mum never
did get around to making this fabric up though, and it has been in her stash
ever since. I‘d forgotten about it until she asked me whether I wanted it back not
long ago. Did I ever! It just happened to be the sort of fabric I always have
my eye out for, and in winter white which likewise is always on my list.

With this second Granville, I have to say I can feel myself
becoming addicted to shirtmaking. This is a surprising development for me,
being as I enjoy a quick sew as much as anyone. But there is something
especially rewarding in executing each part of the shirt jigsaw as well as you
can. It doesn’t bother me that it takes
about two weeks of sewing in one hour bursts to complete a shirt. I actually
think that shirtmaking is suited to the time I have available for sewing at the
moment. I can sew in a placket, or sew up a couple of flat fell seams, and feel
like I’ve achieved something. Suffice to say, I have a few Granvilles in the
mental sewing queue now.

Anyone else have recollections of Flynn's Fabrics? I bought my wedding dress fabric there too, and I recollect it always had really nice fabrics. Sigh.

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